Final Project Report

— What were your specific contributions to your project team this week(s)?

Weeks 9 and 10 were very busy. I worked with Brian C. to help do a rough cut of the video. This was a great way to learn and familiarize myself with Final Cut Pro and to see how everything comes together. He did all of the navigating but he had set up a second monitor so I could help with identifying where the cuts were need for the clips, the order, where the section divisions were needed, and what text screens were needed. It took about three hours and the files were very organized. During the week I did some final adjustments to the black version of the logo, a challenge because there are aspects of the graphic that can’t be all black and if they are all white it looks odd. Last week I created all of the text screens that were to be inserted into the video in Photoshop and met with Brian again for another round of editing and fine-tuning to the video. This was also a three-hour process of getting the layers of photos, B roll, divider slides with text slides, and logo into the video. After Brian posted the link to Basecamp for review I had a few edits for the movement of the images and a few cuts that needed to be done. For the final packet that was handed over to Sr. Catherine, I printed out copies of the graphics manual so she can distribute to Lisa, Mickey, and others who will need to it for reference.

— What’s going well?

I am so proud of this video. I think it’s interesting to watch, informative, engaging, and powerful. I was glad I could be a part of the final editing process and I think Brian, Amelia, and I worked really well together to organize the editing. Overall, I think everyone really worked together and we accomplished our goal for St. Joseph’s Services.
— What’s not going so well?

The only thing that was a bit of a set-back was when we went to pull the images that were hand-picked for the video, some were low resolution and very pixellated. We had to fish for other photos that would work and that added a lot of extra time to our process.
— Any final project reflections?

Starting this project I was more interested in working on the City Farm project. However, after we got started and our group slimmed down, I really enjoyed this process, working with my team, this experience, and am very proud of our final video, logo, and manual. I think all the group members really worked together well and were efficient. I believe this project is a great real-world example of dealing with clients and their needs.

Week 8

Document and reflect on your work and efforts for the previous week:

—What were your specific contributions to your project team this week?
I provided one of the fax templates for the graphics manual and a revision on the logo with some new options incorporating the feedback from St. Joe’s regarding family. I was unable to make the first viewing on Sunday, however today, I’m meeting Brian and Sean and we are filming at the UBS building downtown from 1-3. I’m excited to have the opportunity to do some of the raw footage and be a part of the actual filming process finally.

—What’s going well?
I think we are all working together to get the required elemets accomplished by the due dates. I think we are working at a good rate and feel very confident that we will meet our goals.

—What’s not going so well?
Again, more of a concern for having enough time tonight to really start working on the editing of the video.

—What are your goals for next week?
Hopefully continue editing the video to get it to where we are ready to incorporate the different music options and graphics.

—What resources or help do you need from your project team, class, or instructor?
I think we are all set!

Week 7 Review

—What were your specific contributions to your project team this week?
After narrowing down the logos to present to St. Joseph’s, one of my logos needed a slight rework and I ended up with a couple of options.  I posted the files to the group to compile with the other logos to send on for review.

—What’s going well?
I think we are still working well together, communication seems to be better from basecamp and emails. I think we are on a good timeline to get everything accomplished.

—What’s not going so well?
Maybe more concern about figuring out time/place to review the footage. I’m sure we will discuss tonight.

—What are your goals for next week?
Hopefully we’ll get the opportunity to start editing, reviewing music, determining final products lists for the client.

—What resources or help do you need from your project team, class, or instructor?
Potentially time to review/edit the video.

Week 6

Document and reflect on your work and efforts for the previous week:
I’m really enjoying the book Design, Writing, Research…I’m almost finished with and learned a lot about the history and development of graphic design. I definitely think every designer should read this book. I think there should be more focus on teaching the history in addition to the software and art application. I can’t say enough good things about this book.  

Project Status:
—What’s going well?
This week seems to be in a holding pattern for me. A group went to do the first filming Wednesday at 2pm, which I would’ve like to done but it’s been pretty busy at work. I think we are close to making a decision about the logo. It seems that everyone is really interested and willing to contribute.

—What’s not going so well?
I am concerned about who will actually be doing the video. I think there are too many people in our group who want to do the editing already and it seems that there are a few more people from the CityFarm group who are interested also? I’m not sure this is the venue/project to be able to have everyone edit video. I just don’t see that happening.

—What are your goals for next week?
Try to contribute where needed and hopefully get some goals for St. Joe’s (and possibly Invoice options for City Farm) checked off the list.

—What resources or help do you need from your project team, class, or instructor?
I guess we a place to edit the video from Brian’s email.

Project Report (Week 5)

– What’s going well?

Our core team is working really well together. We are sharing a lot, getting things done, reviewing and commenting in a helpful manner. I think everyone is lending a hand where they have experience/knowledge and are also eager to participate and help where they want to learn. It seems we are molding into a larger functional group rather than divided (i.e. logo/branding, video, web). We are getting great organization and communication from Brian C. and Amelia as far as the who, what, where, when, how. I think we’re going to have a great final project and check a lot of things off St. Joseph’s wish list.

– What’s not going so well?

I think from the communication from the City Farm group that the Invoice option (need) is in limbo or on hold. But I feel like they need to make a decision either way to continue to pursue that or not and focus on the larger project. I think for this class and what the St. Joseph’s group is embarking on, I will need to focus on that project and just move forward with that one team.

– What are your goals for next week?

By Monday I’m going to do some logo mock-ups just to add a few to the options. We are going to try to film the first round of interviews next week, and I offered to be more of the director for one of those shoots. We’re going to see if the web class that is currently doing the redesign could work off of a web template that’s branded with the “new” approved logo.

–What resources or help do you need from your project team, class, or instructor?

Mostly just keeping up the communication to accomplish these projects.

Response 2: Multimodality

 

Runners up:

 

Response: Multimodality: 1-102

There are many references in Kress’s book, Multimodality, that caught my interest to the point of adhering colorful post-it tabs on pages. My response is working through most of those colorful tabs.

My undergraduate degree was English and really appreciated the syntax or “word choosiness” that Kress clearly struggled with while writing this book. He is German and I can’t help to think that the  words in single quotes was his surrendering to that slightly unacceptable word. Also, his indication of prefixes in parenthesis. Page 7 brings up the usage of the word “grammar” and I am one of those people who has the initial reaction of “write a (proper) sentence” definition of the word. I can see how teaching “grammar” (in the traditional sense) could pose problems. e. e. cummings not using capital letters or, more recently, Cormac McCarthy’s purposeful omission of quotation marks from Blood Meridian.

I thought the breakdown of “knowledge vs. information” was interesting the Wikipedia example to show a social community that respects those modes. It wasn’t mentioned in the text but I love the fact that if someone makes an incorrect change or addition to Wikipedia that in seconds it’s removed or correct. Shortly after that mention of Wikipedia, I had to look up the meanings for “epistemological” (a branch of psychology that studies the origin, nature, and limits of human knowledge) and “ontological” (a branch of metaphysics that studies the nature of being).  His sentence on p. 28 answers the question of ‘What do you think New Media Studies is?’ maybe with the addition of the terms “digital” “speech, still image, moving image, writing, gesture, music, 3D models, action, colour.”

On the following page he drops a huge topical bomb, “Are total connectivity and accessibility a social good or are they markers on the road to individual and social pathologies.” Communication has developed and changed so quickly even in the last 10 years that seeing how it’s developed since cave drawings, gives me hope that even with technology we can continue to adapt and connect with each other rather than distancing.

Kress mentions the struggle of translation from one language into another. Recently, I dealt with a co-worker in Berlin who we proposed the sentence, “Around the corner and around the world” to. Which plays quite nicely in English, however in German, does not quite get the same result. The temporary fix was just to leave it in English and the German reader will just have to deal. I just saw a street sign last weekend, “INDPLS” and I thought how hard it would be to interpret what that meant if you weren’t familiar with the area. ”Indianapolis” in its entirety, didn’t make the cut for the green street sign. Also, Kress’ description of signs and gestures was interesting – I guess if I were on an airplane and they didn’t have the  flight attendant gesturing to exactly where the exits are, it would be hard to hear the verbal instructions over the iPod earbuds that have already been shoved in my ears.

One of my first jobs out of college was a permanent art teacher for a public high school in Aurora, IL. I started the year off with four classes which were filled with diverse, inquisitive teens. A hand raises, “We don’t have any rulers?” I respond, “Yes, they’re in the back cabinet at the bottom in a box”. The question wasn’t really a question. I enjoyed the “questions” which were definitely assuming the wors and similar to ‘I wanted to ask, could I have an extension for my essay’ story that was told on p. 56.

As a graphic designer, I was interested in the questions “is font a mode” and “is layout a mode” (p. 87-89) and my immediate “yes” was supported by the pages and examples to follow.

Lastly, on page 44, there as a promising set of questions that I think the class should keep close at hand during our term project. Having those already outlined could really move our project along - given we get all the answers from the client, of course.